This invention relates to cooking appliances wherein start and interruption of a cooking operation such as heating food and a cooking period are controlled by a microcomputer-based control device.
The cooking operation is executed under control of the microcomputer-based control device in increasing number of cooking appliances such as microwave ovens.
In conventional microwave ovens of the type described above, an operation knob for setting the cooking period is turned to set a desirable cooking period. Thereafter, when a cooking start key is depressed, the control device operates to energize a magnetron for the cooking period set, thereby executing the heating cooking On the other hand, when the cooking period is reset during execution of the heating cooking, a cancel key is depressed and then, the operation knob is turned in the same manner as described above so that a new cooking period is set. Subsequently, upon depression of the start key, the control device operates to restart the heating cooking.
The above-described conventional arrangement has the following two disadvantages: first, start of the heating cooking necessitates the turning of the operation knob and depression of the start key, which operations to start the heating cooking are troublesome. Second, the reset of the cooking period during execution of the heating cooking necessitates operations of the cancel key, operation knob and cooking start key, which operations to change the cooking period is also troublesome.